The invention relates to pharmaceuticals, and more particularly relates to pharmaceuticals for use in treating tumors in humans.
At present, tumors are treated either by chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery. Each of these therapies has disadvantages.
It would be advantageous to avoid the disadvantages of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.
One object of the invention is to provide a pharmaceutical therapy for tumors in humans.
Another object is to provide such a therapy which has less disadvantageous side effects than those of other known therapies.
A further object is to provide such a therapy for use with more than one type of tumor.
Still a further object is, in general, to improve on known therapies for treatment of tumors in humans.
In accordance with the invention, there is provided a pharmaceutical for treatment of tumors in humans. The pharmaceutical is a pure protein having a molecular weight of approximately 12,000 Daltons by mass spectrometry (approximately 14,500 Daltons by electrophoresis), a characteristic isoelectric point by isoelectric focussing and a characteristic amino acid composition. Advantageously although not necessarily, the pharmaceutical is derived from frog eggs subjected to fertilization; in a preferred embodiment, the pharmaceutical is derived from embryos and eggs of the Rana pipiens frog. The development of the embryos is advantageously halted before gastrulation and preferably at or before the full blastulae (128 cell) stage, and the embryos are homogenized in the presence of a weakly acidic buffer and then centrifuged to derive a supernatant liquid. This is then subjected to ion-exchange chromatography and size-exclusion chromatography.